Al Jazeera says its journalist will remain in German custody

Ahmed Mansour, a well-known journalist in the Arab world, is likely to remain in German custody, say officials. The case is re-focusing international attention on press freedom.

By
Ali Abdelaty and Ahmed Aboulenein, Reuters /
June 21, 2015

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Staff members of Al Jazeera International work at the news studio in Doha, Qatar, Jan. 1, 2015. Ahmed Mansour, a prominent Al-Jazeera Arabic journalist, was detained Saturday, June 20, in Germany over an Egyptian arrest warrant, the Qatar-based broadcaster reported.

Osama Faisal/AP/File

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CAIRO

One of the pan-Arab television network Al Jazeera's best known journalists, Ahmed Mansour, was remanded in custody by a German judge after being detained at Egypt's request, the public prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

Mr. Mansour was arrested in Berlin at Egypt's request, in a case that puts Germany in an awkward position as it wrestles with balancing business interests and human rights, and also renews questions about Cairo's crackdown on dissent.

Egypt accuses Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-backed Islamist movement that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed from power in 2013 when he was army chief and calls a terrorist group.

Both the television channel and the Brotherhood reject the allegations made by Egyptian authorities.

Mansour, a leading talk show host on the Qatari channel's Arabic service, was arrested at a Berlin airport on Saturday, the latest Al Jazeera journalist to be pursued by the Egyptian authorities.

"The temporary detention investigative judge has concluded his investigation with Ahmed Mansour and he has been transferred to Moabit prison in Berlin," Al Jazeera said on its website on Sunday.

A Cairo court sentenced Mansour, who has dual Egyptian and British citizenship, to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on a charge of torturing a lawyer in 2011 in Tahrir Square, the focus of the uprising that toppled veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Jazeera said at the time the charge was false and an attempt to silence Mansour, known to viewers across the Arab world.

Mansour told Al Jazeera by telephone earlier: "The German authorities told me that we are dealing with an international criminal case" and a judge would decide whether he should be extradited to Egypt.